A rare group of Roman Iron Age game pieces and an elongated die have been discovered in a burial cairn at Ytre Fosse in Western Norway. University Museum of Bergen archaeologists excavated the site overlooking the Alverstraumen strait, an area known for its copious burial mounds, in advance of development and uncovered an Early Iron Age grave.

Underneath a top layer of turf removed by a mechanical digger, the team discovered a circle of stones around black soil indicating burning in situ. The burn layer contained bone fragments and charcoal from a cremation pyre. Artifacts were added to the grave after the fire had consumed the body: three ceramic pots, a bronze pin, burned glass, 18 game pieces and one long rectangular die, also known as an oblong or stick die.

The gaming pieces are made of bone and in relatively good condition with 13 intact and only five broken. The die, also made of bone, was broken in two pieces. On three of its long sides the numbers are in the form of circles with a dot in the middle representing rolls of three, four and six. One side is blank for a roll of nada. These types of dice are exceedingly rare in Norway. Fewer than 15 of them are known.

The dice is of a very rare type, exclusive for Roman Iron Age (AD 1 – 400). In Scandinavia, similar dices are found in the famous Vimose weapon-offering site at Fyn, Denmark. At Vimose also the gaming board was preserved, giving a unique view into Early Iron Age board games among the Germanic tribes in Scandinavia. Board games, inspired by the Roman game Ludus latrunculorum, seems to have been played amongst the elite in Roman Iron Age Scandinavia. These games are also the forerunner to the more famous Viking Age (AD 750-1050) board game Hnefatafl.

The results from the Ytre Fosse excavation will undoubtedly contribute with more precise data on the chronology of dices and gaming pieces in Early Iron Age Norway and the significance and social impact of gaming  during these times.

The high-status game gear is evidence that the deceased was someone of significant power and wealth in the area. The Alverstraumen strait was an important trade route transporting goods to and from the continent. Anyone who controlled the shipping lane raked in money from taxes, duties and fees and had access to luxury items like this Roman gaming set.

The objects and remains have been recovered from the grave and will be stabilized and studied at a conservation lab in Bergen. There are no current plans for the game pieces to go on display, but that is the ultimate goal.

The remains of more than 60 Columbian mammoths have been unearthed in Xaltocan, Mexico. There are adult males and females as well as young specimens. They likely died after getting stuck in the mud of an ancient lake or the swampy terrain left in its wake once it dried up.

The mammoth bones were found 12 miles from Tultepec where in a global first, a mammoth hunting trap deliberately set by humans was discovered. There is no evidence of human hunting, although it’s possibly people took advantage of the opportunity to take down a giant while it was stuck in the mud. So far no evidence of butchering has been found on the bones either.

The bones of other Pleistocene animals, including bison and camel, were also found there. The hundreds of bones recovered from the site are currently being stabilized, analyzed and classified. When that work is done, we’ll have a more precise figure for the total number of mammoths and other megafauna. Researchers will also investigate their ages at time of death, diets and any injuries and diseases.

National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) archaeologists began surveying the former Santa Lucía Military Air Base, site of the future General Felipe Angeles International Airport, in October 2019 to salvage any archaeological and paleontological materials before construction. They opened 23 trenches on the land; osteological remains were found in three of them. In the pit closest to what was once the shore of Lake Xaltocan, the osteological remains are in much better condition that the ones found where the prehistoric lake was deepest.

Human remains were also discovered at the Xaltocan dig, but they were far more recent, dating to the pre-Hispanic period. About 15 individual burials were found. Some of them were interred with grave goods including pots, bowls and clay figurines. The ceramic types indicate the burials date to the Postclassic period (950-1521 A.D.).

These finds will not prevent the construction of the new airport, but there is a proposal under consideration to create a museum that would be integrated into the airport complex.

The skeleton of a woman buried in a crouched position has been discovered in Uckermark, northeastern Germany. Archaeologists with the Brandenburg State Office for the Preservation of Monuments were excavating the site of a new wind turbine when they discovered the crouch burial.

She had been placed on her right side, her knees bent to her chest, her head facing north. Her grave was not in a burial ground, but rather next to a settlement. No grave goods have survived. The exact date of the burial has not been established yet, but archaeologists believe she was buried between 2,200 and 2,500 B.C., the late Neolithic period.

“I’ve never made a find like this before,” [archaeologist Philipp] Roskoschinski, who owns the archaeological firm Archaeros, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

He and his colleague believe that this indicates the woman was purposefully positioned this way and was not simply put in the grave.

Researchers are now carrying out tests to get a better idea of how old the skeleton is as well as how the woman died.

“Unfortunately, there were no other finds in the grave that could tell us more about the woman’s life,” Roskoschinski told Tagesspiegel newspaper. “But the site was lovingly surrounded by fieldstones.”